This invention relates to a sensor terminal apparatus and a service planning system, and more particularly, to a planning method for optimizing a rental fee and a maintenance plan.
When a company requires a machine or an apparatus, the company rents the machine or the apparatus from a rental company, and pays a rental fee for the rented machine or apparatus, to thereby avoid temporary payment of a large amount of money to purchase the machine or the apparatus. The rental company purchases a machine and an apparatus in place of the company, and rents a machine or an apparatus to the company for a fixed period.
In the oil and gas (hereinafter referred to as “OAG”) industry, in order to explore oil and gas, an exploration company installs several tens of thousands of sensor terminals to examine the structure of geological strata, and rents the sensor terminals from a rental company in many cases. When a sensor terminal to be repaired and maintained by the rental company fails during a period in which the sensor terminal is rented to the exploration company, the rental company incurs cost that is originally unnecessary, for example, cost for transporting an alternative terminal, whereas the exploration company incurs loss, for example, extension of a period of exploration.
Further, in order to finely examine the structure of geological strata, several hundreds of thousands to several millions of sensor terminals are said to be required. It is therefore important for the exploration company to rent highly reliable sensor terminals from the rental company at a proper price without owning a large number of sensors by itself, to thereby shorten the period of exploration and reduce cost. In addition, the rental company is required to maintain and manage an enormous number of devices and optimize a rental fee of the device.
In order to make an appropriate rental contract, there has been known a system in which operational information on a machine or an apparatus is acquired, a remaining value of the machine or the apparatus is calculated based on the operational information, and a rental fee is calculated based on the remaining value.
For example, in JP 2005-174008 A, there is disclosed a machine fee calculation system configured to calculate a lease fee or rental fee of a machine to be leased or rented for use. The system includes: operational information acquisition means, which is installed in the machine, for acquiring operational information on the machine; load status accumulation means for accumulating load status data on a load imposed on the machine due to use of the machine; load status update means for updating the load status data accumulated in the load status accumulation means based on the operational information acquired by the operational information acquisition means; and remaining value calculation means for calculating a remaining value of the machine based on the accumulated load status data.
Further, in JP 2002-183511 A, there is disclosed a method of selling a machine in consideration of use history. A configuration for executing the method substantially includes: standard remaining value calculation means for calculating an estimate of a construction machine (machine or vehicle) to be given to a user; estimate calculation means; a standard condition database (standard condition or standard condition DB); an operation environment condition database (operation environment condition or operation environment condition DB); a use condition database (use condition or use condition DB); a maintenance history database (maintenance history or maintenance history DB); and a load condition database (load condition or load condition DB).
In such related-art systems, the remaining value and the rental fee of a machine or an apparatus are set based on a use status (operational information or maintenance history information) of the machine or the apparatus. Thus, an exploration company can shorten a period of exploration by renting a highly reliable sensor terminal, and can also suppress cost for exploration with a reasonable rental fee.